Hedging in Discourse Analysis

hwsy@overseaen.comISSN 1009- -5039htp://ww.overcaen.comOverseas English海外英语Tel:+86- -551-65690811 65690812Hedging in Discourse AnalysisXIAO Xin(Department of Education, The Universily of York, UK, Y010 5NG)Abstract: In this article an attempt to enhance the awareness of hedging use in discourse analysis and academic writing is madeby analyzing hedges employed in two comparable texts. The discourse analysis is conducted from“content- oriented" hedges and“reader- oriented" hedges. The article suggests that hedging can dampen utterances and statements, weaken the force of what one .says and show politeness to the listeners or readers, which varies from different discourse styles of various genres.Key words:iscourse marker; hedging; research article; news report中图分类号:H0文献标识码:A文章编号: 1009- -5039(2015)12- -0232- -031 Introductionto 1965, neither Zadeh nor W einreich used the term“hedging” or“hedges” in their studies. The notion of hedging from the perspec-In recent studies of discourse analysis metadiscourse receivedtive of linguistics was originally introduced by Lakoff (1973) in hisa great deal of attention. The metadiscourse model proposed by Hy-article "Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic ofland and Tse (2004) divides metadiscourse into two main calego- Fuzzy Concepts". Lakoff (1973, p.458-- 461) labeled hedging asries- interactive and interactional. As one of the interactional me-linguistic expressions that are used to modify the truth of the propo-ta-signaling devices, hedging generally refers to expressions of pos-sition, conveying fuzziness and tentativeness.sibility such as 'likely’ , 'I think’and‘ may' that can minimizeHedging is defined as a means to make utterances or state-force and provide an opinion rather than a fact (takura & Tsui, ments fzzier and less forceful, protecting the 'face ; of the speak-2011). In spite of some previous studies about hedging, compareder. Biber (1988, 240) gives a discourse- oriented definition of hedg-with other meta- signaling devices such as transitions and framees that“hedges are informal, less specific markers of probability ormarkers, the analyses of hedging are somewhat les. Furthemore, uncertainty". Later Hyland(1996, p.433) put forward a definition ofdespite the frequent occurrence and distribution of hedging in re-hedging highlighting its significance of academic writing thatsearch articles, newspapers and conversational discourses, the anal-“hedging is the expression of tentativeness and possibility and it isysis of hedging in comparable discourses received less attention.central to academic writing where the need to present unprovenTherefore, in this article hedging will be discussed with the pur-propositions with caution and precision is essential”.pose of enhancing the awareness of hedging use in discourse analy-W ith respect to the category of hedging, it presents an unfixedsis and academic writing by analyzing the use of hedging in twomodel. From the semantic and pragmatic perspective, Prince, Frad-comparable texts. One of the comparable texts is an extract of a re-er and Bosk(Prince, Frader, & Bosk , 1982) categorized hedging in-search article in the field of Biotechnology from Scientific Reports to “approximanators” and “shields” “Approximators” are expres-(Sato, Y asuhara, Kikuchi, & Sato, 2013). The other is a news reportfrom BBC Neus (Hawkins, 2013). The discourse analysis will becourse fuzzier and highlight the adequacy of discourse content.conducted from“content oriented" and“witer oiented" hedges "Shields" are worls and phrases like "migh”, "I think" and“per-employed from Hyland's classification of hedging (Hyland, 1996). .haps”which are employed to modify the truth of the utterance,2 Literature Reviewshowing that the speakers and writers are not committed to the va-lidity of what they convey.With respect to the origin of hedging, Zadeh (1965) and Wein-Similar with Prince’s model, the classification of hedging pro-eich (1966) as the most important predecessors of hedging re-posed by Hyland (1996) is in his'pragmatic framework", but he di-search should be mentioned. Zadeh( 1965) considered classes suchvided hedging in the context of academic discourse into two catego-as“animal" to own unchanged membership criteria in his“Fuzyries. One is“content-oriented”which refers to the relationship be-Sets", which is the fuzzy set theory. W einreich( 1996) marked hedg-tween what writers propose and what the reality represent concern-ing as‘metalinguistic operators”in his article “On the Semantic .ing the statements’accuracy conditions. The other is“reader- ori-Structure of English". He argued that:ented”which takes the readers’ response of propositions an"for every language 'metalinguistic operators' such as (in) Eng-whether they accept them into consideration. In sum, a hypothesislish true, real, so- called, strictly speaking, and (in) German ei-made by a writer is related to both the nature of reality and thegentlich, and the most powerful extrapolator of all - like - functionceptability to an audience (Hyland, 1996,). “Content- oriented"as instructions for the loose or strict interpretation of designatal"hedges can be further divided into two categories, namely“accura-(1966, p.163). .cy- oriented”and“ writer- oriented' . The first one is an obligationAlthough they argued the phenomenon of hedging dating backto present propositions as accurately as possible while the second中国煤化工MHCNMHG收稿日期:2015-05-05修回日期:2015-05-25作者简介:肖欣(1990-),女,湖北孝感人，英国约克大学教育学院对外英语教育研究生,研究方向:对外英语教育。232 /遭孚研酸7 7 2栏目责任编辑:谢媛媛Overseas English海外英语2015年06月(13) Our results reported herein suggest _that a lipid droplet divi-hedges are frequent. Therefore, academic writing teacher shouldsion driven by an increased surface to volume is possible.duce writer’s responsibility by using passive constructions or claus- cally used in making claims or assertions in an argument, and put-al subjects. In (14) the passive construction“have been previously ting forward views. W hen you speculate about data or interpret re-reported”acts as this kind of hedging device.sults it is also used.(14)Although several other self- replicating synthetic cell divi-References:sion systems have been previously reported.3.4 Reader-oriented Hedges[1] Abdi R. 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Information and Control, 1965, 8: .ing one of the typical genres, the occurrence and distribution of338- 353.中国煤化工MYHCNMHG234 /遭爱研7本栏目责任编辑:谢嫒嫒